Relative Positions
dal 21/10/2001 al 9/12/2001
Segnalato da
21/10/2001
Relative Positions
Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston
The exhibition forms a dialogue among the photographs of Amy Adler, Liza May Post, and Francesca Woodman. All three operate on the boundaries of photography as document, fiction, or theater. Coming from diverse backgrounds and employing disparate strategies, they investigate the conceptual, psychological, and narrative aspects of representation. They combine photography with other media in order to disrupt the conventions that surround our conceptual and visual reception of images. Adler, Post, and Woodman also share an interest in performance art and pose the human figure in ways that challenge our assumptions and perceptions about the subjects of their work.
The work of many artists of the 1980s questioned photography's seeming objectivity and its role as a reporter of the
establishment. In the 1990s, artists explored photography's processes and how its images were viewed and
interpreted by the public. Most recently, artists working in this media have taken a stronger turn away from naturalism
or a diaristic intent. Often embracing cinematic strategies, they have reinterpreted personal or public narratives and the
relationship of the viewer to the subject by their use of fictional narratives or paradoxical subjects. Relative Positions
explores the work of three artists who have contributed unique and innovative photographs to the conceptual and
artistic premises of these recent developments.
The exhibition forms a dialogue among the photographs of Amy Adler, Liza May Post, and Francesca Woodman. All
three operate on the boundaries of photography as document, fiction, or theater. Coming from diverse backgrounds
and employing disparate strategies, they investigate the conceptual, psychological, and narrative aspects of
representation. They combine photography with other media in order to disrupt the conventions that surround our
conceptual and visual reception of images. Adler, Post, and Woodman also share an interest in performance art and
pose the human figure in ways that challenge our assumptions and perceptions about the subjects of their work.
Los Angeles artist Amy Adler (b. 1966) employs images that are photographs of her own pastel drawings, which, in
turn, are based on photographic portraits the artist has either found or taken. This process of the remaking of a
picture, the fusion of the two media, and of the shift in the perspective from which the subject is represented,
introduces a complex progression of content to the viewer. Adler's most recent work is characterized by sequences of
images of the artist writing, reading, or speaking, and adds a new layer to her investigation of the representation of the
self.
Dutch artist Liza May Post (b. 1965) works in performance, film, and photography. In these media, she develops
stylized scenes in which her characters and their surroundings blend together through dramatic morphological
transformations. Often representing alone and faceless people, Post's photographs exhibit an existentialist view.
Representing the loss and recovery of identity, her work challenges the natural parameters of narrative and the
audience's response to it.
The work of Francesca Woodman was made in an earlier decade-between 1972 and her premature death at the age
of twenty-two in 1981. It has, however, become a seminal influence on much of the current activity in this media. In
her photographs, Woodman's own figure forms the image, her body and its action constructing the composition. As
brisk as they are mesmerizing, as factual as they are intimate, Woodman's photographs offer the viewer a unique
combination of immediacy and sophisticated imagery.
Opening: October 19 2001
Hours:
Tuesday - Wednesday, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Thursday, 10 a.m. - 9 p.m.
Friday - Saturday, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Sunday, noon - 5 p.m.
Closed Mondays, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, and New
Year's Day
Admission: FREE